MALVERN, Pa. & TEMPLE, Texas--Continuing to highlight the success of its partnership with NextGen Healthcare, Siemens Medical Solutions (www.usa.siemens.com/medical) has announced that Scott & White of Temple, Texas, one of the largest multi-specialty physician practices in the U.S., has signed an agreement with Siemens to be its provider of NextGen Healthcare's electronic medical record (NextGen(R) EMR) solution. This agreement will enable Scott & White to establish a framework for interoperability across its 15 ambulatory clinics, ultimately helping to improve clinical efficiencies, reduce costs, and enhance the quality of patient care.


"Implementing this EMR solution in our outpatient environments will help us to more effectively manage physician and patient workflow," said Bill McCombs, Ph.D., chief information officer, Scott & White. "Our current system has provided valuable clinical information to all our physicians, but has lacked interoperability. Now, they will be able to interact with that information immediately, connecting them with supporting staff and enabling more streamlined processes across care settings."

Scott & White will implement NextGen EMR, which was recently certified by the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology (CCHIT), first at its Bryan/College Station Clinic, which includes 90 providers representing many of the health system's sub-specialties, and in the Department of Ophthalmology at its main campus in Temple. NextGen EMR will be implemented in a multi-phase roll-out over the next two-to-three years across all its affiliated facilities, encompassing 928 providers.

NextGen EMR's feature-rich system will seamlessly interoperate with Scott & White's existing Siemens clinical IT solutions and modalities to provide its clinicians with access to longitudinal health records and streamlined information access and availability across acute and ambulatory settings.

"Siemens has been fortunate to partner with Scott & White for more than 20 years. Throughout our relationship we have delivered many technology and medical modality solutions to this award-winning physician group and now we are pleased to bring to bear our alliance with NextGen," said Janet Dillione, president, Healthcare IT Division, Siemens Medical Solutions. "The need to provide physicians with up-to-date patient data and image accessibility across care settings is essential and Scott & White sets a powerful example for the industry as they implement this exciting and aggressive EMR strategy."

"With more than 1.5 million patient visits each year at Scott & White, we anticipate achieving measurable efficiencies in patient care and reimbursement coding, as well as reductions in transcription costs," added McCombs. "It also puts Scott & White at the forefront of the national movement toward interoperable EMRs, as put forth by President Bush."

Siemens and NextGen Healthcare announced a strategic partnership in February 2005, uniting Siemens expertise in enterprise healthcare IT solutions and advanced medical imaging technologies for the acute and specialty environments with NextGen Healthcare's industry leadership in ambulatory EMR and practice management software. Today, several providers are live on combined Siemens/NextGen offerings, including enterprise practice management (NextGen EPM) integrated with Siemens RIS/PACS, which provides a complete solution for managing imaging workflow from scheduling, registration and interpretation to billing.

As part of Scott & White's drive to provide a comprehensive and holistic EMR to its patient community, Dennis L. Myers, M.D., director of Medical Informatics, Scott & White, will present the "5 Easy Pieces - A Guide to an Ambulatory Practice Management System" at the Outpatient 100 Conference, Sept. 17-19, 2006 in Las Colinas, Texas. Siemens is a sponsor of the conference, which provides a forum for hospital and health system leaders to share best practices for growing and managing the outpatient components of large health services organizations.

NextGen Healthcare Information Systems, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Quality Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:QSII), develops and markets computer-based practice management and electronic medical records systems for medical group practices. For more information about NextGen, please visit www.nextgen.com and www.qsii.com.

Established on December 29, 1897, by Dr. Arthur C. Scott and Dr. Raleigh White Jr., Scott & White is one of the largest multi-specialty group practices in the U.S. Scott & White's mission is to provide personalized, comprehensive, high-quality health care enhanced by medical education and research. The health system encompasses a main clinic in Temple, 15 regional clinics and an award-winning teaching hospital affiliated with The Texas A&M University Health Science Center College of Medicine. The 928 providers at Scott & White see patients from Texas, the Southwest, across the U.S. and many foreign countries.

Siemens Medical Solutions of Siemens AG (NYSE:SI) with headquarters in Malvern, Pennsylvania, and Erlangen, Germany, is one of the largest suppliers to the healthcare industry in the world. The company is known for bringing together innovative medical technologies, healthcare information systems, management consulting, and support services, to help customers achieve tangible, sustainable, clinical and financial outcomes. Employing approximately 33,000 people worldwide and operating in more than 120 countries, Siemens Medical Solutions reported sales of 7.6 billion EUR, orders of 8.6 billion EUR and group profit of 976 million EUR for fiscal 2005. More information can be obtained by visiting www.usa.siemens.com/medical-pressroom.